ON BALANCE: To reject a crackdown on Mexican illegals is to ask for trouble in America’s black communities

Given the liberal obsession with “fake news”, I thought it might be timely to take one of The Donald’s most controversial and ridiculed policies, and examine the objective ramifications of building or not building The Wall. My conclusion is that the civil rights of America’s poorest indigenous groups are being damaged by illegal immigration, but that the Wall itself is something of a red herring. A better solution will, however, need Trump to tackle entrenched interests head on.

Here are some very simple facts about immigration into the US; they are all and only from Government institutions, University social studies and professional research organisations. These people – the “experts” so beloved of Leftlibs on the losing side – have been wrong countless times before…so I can’t guarantee any of their conclusions. But I can cast an expert eye over the data, and reach some of my own.

Illegal immigrants in the US peaked in 2007 at a level of 12.2 million. The total is now stable at 11.1 million. But it stabilised because the US upped the level of control and security along the border under Dubya’s Secure Fence Act.

Hillary Clinton and over half the Senate’s Democrats voted for it.

Based on the homeland security chart above, the Act cut the 5-year growth in illegals from 35% to minus -17%. In terms of Congress majority aims, therefore, it worked extremely well.

Mexican illegals make up just over half (52%) of all unauthorised entries into the US. As they’re only 28% of legal immigration, this makes them the key group in any attempt to reduce the levels involved – if the levels are perceived as a problem.

The problem does not seem to be a financial one for the US: although the cost in terms of welfare and pension liabilities is estimated at $113 billion per annum, “taxes gathered” on them via payroll data suggest the cost is cancelled out.

Looked at in terms of a Mexican economy in terms of social benefits, however, the recession there and high unemployment plus the much smaller gdp means that, in effect, the US burden is a huge “free” subsidy for the Mexican government.

At a qualitative demographic level, however, there is a different story: surprisingly, the bulk of illegals are aged 40+….at a rate 20% above the indigenous US average….and the level of college education is very low – compared to 44% for all legal migrants to the United States. Over time, therefore, it is likely that costs for public health and unemployment benefit will escalate. (Access to these, for some unfathomable reason, seems to be remarkable easy to obtain without paperwork – as yet, I can’t find definitive data on that)

Given those facts – and well documented cases of neocon employers knowingly employing cheap Mexican labour – 8 million of the 11 million illegals have jobs, mostly low-paid. But looking at the demography, the real figure of those of working age with jobs is nearer 8/9.8 – or just over 81%

Although I have no faith at all in official figures on black unemployment in the US, the rate is alleged to be 9.2% (twice the white rate). There are 8.8 million citizens self-designated as of African origin, which would mean 800,000 unemployed African Americans. With 8 million illegals filling lowpaid jobs, that would seem unfair on the black unemployed population.

It can be argued that if Mexican illegals take jobs in states with low black populations, the unfairness argument is weakened. But this does not seem to be the case. One of the biggest centres of illegals is Washington DC – a town with massive black unemployment problems. By far the biggest number settle in California, where the Black jobless rate is high at 10.7%. Overall, the overlap between blacks and hispanics in US urban centres is high. This is hardly surprising, but it is disturbing.

From a pro-Trump standpoint, these data represent some (but not total) support for his Wall. Bush’s 2007 Fence Act removed the growth in illegal hispanic immigration…but not the cost going forward of simply ‘looking the other way’ in relation to unauthorised entry.

Further, giving a free subsidy to the Mexican government is unfair to US taxpayers, and simply letting them stay exacerbates the problem of falling wage rates and an increasingly disgruntled black population.

What strikes one as hypocritical is Clinton’s mocking of The Wall given she and most of her Congressional colleagues voted for its predecessor.

However, tightening security on the border (while important) is a relatively indirect solution: by far the biggest difference would be achieved by deporting illegals more effectively.

Part of that finding revolves around exploding the myth of “much-needed young workers” via illegal hispanic immigration. The demography of illegals conclusively refutes that liberal argument.

But to protect existing poor legal citizens means taking on both the neocon Establishment – which just loves all that competition for jobs and depressed wage levels – and the liberal Establishment – which, bafflingly, thinks the detection of criminal behaviour and doing something about it to be an infringement of “human rights”.

I am on record as saying that there is no such thing as human rights. But in any given collection of citizenry under a largely approved statehood at whatever level, there most certainly ought to be civil rights. The evasion of formalities and cheating of the State cannot be tolerated when that seriously affects the civil rights of the indigenous population….particularly if that section of society is already gravely alienated and at war with many forms of authority. I don’t condone that: it is simply a fact – and one which any responsible Executive would be honour bound to take into account.

If, once inaugurated, Donald Trump announces an effective programme of deporting illegals – alongside a programme of improved wage levels for a readily available, poor workforce to fill their jobs – it would evoke widespread criticism from two extremes supposed to be on opposite sides. For that reason alone, I suspect, it would prove to be very good governance.

Many people in the United States are under the assumption that president Obama has deported millions of illegals. That simply is not true. “Deportation” as defined by the administration takes place when an illegal doesn’t show up for his first deportation hearing after he/she is caught and released. Obviously since the person has not shown up there is no way of knowing whether he has actually left the country. The reality is that he/she probably has not. But they will continue to be listed as “deported” by the administration. It’s what I call Washington math and it’s used whenever an administration wants to look better than reality. Another example are the unemployment numbers where those who are considered no longer looking for work are no part of the unemployment figures.

1, Illegals are by their very defintion ‘ILLEGAL’. Git rid. Until you change the law, its that simple. Uphold the law or change it…….

2. Whilst I agree with Trump and Barry on getting rid of illegals I am unhappy that they aren’t forced by the UN to take milllions of refugees from the wars and coups they have started across the globe.

Please do not disturb me today. I am just in the mood for sitting on the sofa watching tv news and eating my favorite – prawn sandwiches with garlic mayo and paprika shake, and peach ice cream on strawberries. Oh yummy yum yum.
Then I have a snooze and go for a shower.

In the same way as the UK, the US has continually redefined the way it which it measures unemployment. There is a US site run by an economist named John Williams. He attempts to get behind the official Government statistics and take out the spin. He calculates that using the Government methodology as used in 1994 the unemployment rate is around 23%; His site contains a lot of detailed analysis but the charts shown at http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts illustrate the differences.

Stagnant growth. Persistently high levels of unemployment. Levels of state spending that are starting to make Cuba look like a free-market paradise. A growing trade deficit, restrictive labour laws, and vast swathes of declining rust-belt industries. It is no great surprise that many people look at France today and conclude that it looks a lot like Britain in the 1970s – and decide that what it needs is a Gallic version of Margaret Thatcher to shake it out of economic decline.Now they may have their man. In the primaries to choose the centre-right candidate for next year’s presidential election, the former prime minister, François Fillon, took an unexpected early lead. A staunch admirer of Thatcher, Fillon campaigned on a platform of bracing free-market reforms – and at least a chunk of the electorate appear to have liked what they heard.Like Thatcher before him, Fillon wants to slim down the state, take on restrictive labour laws, such as the 35-hour week and early retirement ages, and unleash some entrepreneurial energy to restore growth and create new jobs. Fillon’s problem, however, is this: it is just not going to work. That is not just because he will face opposition from the unions, although he will. It is because it is virtually impossible to make structural reforms in an economy that is gripped by deflation.Rewind to 1980s Britain, which Fillon holds up as a role model. With its privatisation of state industries, cuts to government spending and dismantling of trade-union power, what became known as Thatcherism was a tough set of reforms, and there were lots of hard-fought battles to push those changes through. They were successful in the medium-term – but there was a lot of short-term pain beforehand.
The point that is often forgotten is this: those reforms were made against a backdrop of rising demand. The Tories in the 1980s started out with budget cuts and a deep recession in 1981-1982. But after that, as inflation came under control, real interest rates were steadily falling for most of the decade – and that fuelled an expansion of spending.
At the same time, the development of North Sea oil led to a windfall of tax revenues amounting to tens of billions of pounds. That enabled the government to cut taxes far faster than it otherwise could have done. Overall, the economy was being constantly stimulated – and, even so, it was still hard to make structural reforms.
France has nothing like that going for it. Interest rates are already close to zero, and in some cases negative. The European Central Bank has been printing money like crazy for the past year, and can hardly do much more. France is stuck with an over-valued currency, for its own needs at least, which shifts demand to Germany. It has plenty of shale gas, but has so far shown zero interest in developing it. The backdrop is constantly deflationary, and it is impossible to see where any significant stimulus to demand is going to come from. Against that, structural reform is hopeless.
Going into the election next year, Fillon’s real problem will be promising the impossible. That only makes it more likely that National Front leader Marine Le Pen will be the eventual winner. Most of her policies are toxic – but at least they are realistic. France has little chance of reviving its economy so long as it remains a member of a single currency that is steadily ripping the heart out of its industrial base. Thatcherism plus control of its own currency would work – but unfortunately that is not what is on offer.
So you see one pays the money and takes the choice, even if your short of a dime or two.

Some years ago, during a push to deport illegal migrants from the USA, I saw reports of protests from the farming community – without seasonal workers from Mexico, the farmers said, they could not find sufficient workers to bring in crops. American citizens, the farmers said, were unwilling to do the low-paid seasonal work.

I read over you well reasoned article and while thinking the ‘good for blacks’ thing was a bit much, it was OK. That is until the end.

“If, once inaugurated, Donald Trump announces an effective programme of deporting illegals – alongside a programme of improved wage levels for a readily available, poor workforce to fill their jobs – it would evoke widespread criticism from two extremes supposed to be on opposite sides. For that reason alone, I suspect, it would prove to be very good governance.”

Trump, well reasoned? Good governance? Let me put it simply. Your nuts. Trump is a fruitcake. 10% common sense and 90% common nonsense. The Trump cure is equally bad as the disease. There was a choice, the devil or the deep blue sea. Neither side is a win. To think so, in binary terms, Clinton bad/ Trump good is simplistic in the extreme.

@Rob1331; better put than I could have but the fact that immigration pushes up GDP but at the same time might depress per capita GDP needs explaining and emphasising as the MSM line (plus a lot of left/lib fluffies) is usually that mass immigration is good for GDP growth.

There are some differences in the effects of economic migration between the “new” and “old” worlds.

In the new, the Statue of Liberty sentiment reflected historical reality that economic migration helped to fuel average productivity growth back then. Cultural enrichment was a by-product, partly constrained by the Constitution in place since States first tried to avoid religious wars in the new Federal Republic. That economic benefit has now trailed off with globalism – leading to Trump. Even though economic migration (with or without the attentions of Homeland Security) is probably still around break-even overall, as John notes, the debt stops targeted redistributions where politics dictate that Black lives matter more than undocumented Hispanic ones. Hence the Wall/increasing deportations.

In the old, the negative impacts on average productivity have been clearer for longer to more people. The strong rise in net migration in the UK has coincided with flat-lining productivity for example. So the establishment have pushed the cultural enrichment rationale harder for longer, obfuscating over the difference between total GDP growth and per capita wellbeing in the process. But not even Merkel can now credibly sustain the line that unmanaged economic migration at scale continues to help productivity, even for Germany, and thus is joining the ranks of politicians prepared to admit what ordinary folk have been shouting about across the “old” world for quite some time.

JW: “the neocon Establishment – which just loves all that competition for jobs and depressed wage levels – and the liberal Establishment – which, bafflingly, thinks the detection of criminal behaviour and doing something about it to be an infringement of “human rights”. Same conclusion could be applied over here.

France with it’s 35 hour week still has greater productivity than Britain or the US. They still have an automotive industry, nuclear industry etc. Do they really want to follow the Thatcherite route of believing that Finance can drive real growth. They should take a long hard look at our eceonomy.

US immigration, a political potato always ready to be served. (hot potato pick it up)
Immigration is a simple McGuffin. A politicolon uses it to get elected by workers of all colors that live here against furringers that want their jobs and don’t vote. Can’t lose attack. The attack includes migrant workers that do jobs citizens won’t do. They come and go seasonally, or work for years and then go home. We attack these fine folks from latin america and will soon be calling them eptithets only popular on TV, as seen only on TV, showing side by side with a running commentary about their being gun toting invaders from everywhere.
Just a McGuffin. Migrant workers make the world turn. They always will.

JW – “…There are 8.8 million citizens self-designated as of African origin, which would mean 800,000 unemployed African Americans. ”

Either I misunderstood, or your figures are confusing. ‘African’ is not the same as ‘African-American’. There are actually 37+ million African Americans in the US and as Gemma has pointed out, the official unemployment figures are totally misleading and unrepresentative. Some years ago, I remember some quite outspoken resistance to Latino immigration from the Afr-American community precisely because it was impacting their jobs but this protestation doesn’t seem to have garnered much media coverage lately….

Many immigrants hailing from down Mexico way (anyone remember that song?) are not from Mexico directly but any and all countries in South America. Moreover, numbers of Muslims from the ME (who would presumably have faced rejection via the official route) have entered the US this way.
This illegal method of getting in contrasts starkly with the official system, which is very thorough, intrusive and time-consuming, sometimes taking up to 10 years.

Btw, anyone notice that Merkel has just done an about-face and is now talking of deporting up to 100,000 ?

Well, as I see it, as Chicago I believe has said it welcomes all illegals, you start rounding them up a few at a time, then wait for them all to migrate to Chicago, and Bob’s your uncle, either build a wall around Chicago (cheaper and easier) or, round them all up in one go!

Immigration is an economic con by the politicians, a pretence of growth by using immigration. Hence no UK government, let alone the US has been able to regulate it effectively the last 4 decades, more a convenience of ensuring growth, better to just ignore it and pay lip service.

If you now repatriate illegals, you lose the consumption and they do not have a cost on the government figures because they are illegal. Think that is a -ve growth component.

Overall, why we still talking over immigration as we have been for the last 3-4 decades? Truth now … it is the only real growth in the economy. The politicians will spin this out more and more, with ever larger numbers no matter the suffering of the natives so they can say “we have growth”.

I wouldn’t deport the illegals, I would deport or make the entitled elites disappear because that is a true cost saving for the population. No P2P to support or any other corruption.

Thatchers legacy to Britain was a toxic mix of de-industrialisation, de-regulation of the Financial sector leading to massive fraud. Privatisation of State utilities , creating toll paying serfs of the population.
She created a wasteland and future generations have little hope of a recovery.
I hope France learns from the destructive Thatcher years and does not go down that neo-liberal road.
France has little opportunity to revive its economy when it has no control over the Euro currency. The only hope for France is to exit the Euro and the EU.
A Nation that does not issue and control its currency is not a free Nation

Briefly o/t
Stagnant growth. Persistently high levels of unemployment. Levels of state spending that are starting to make Cuba look like a free-market paradise. A growing trade deficit, restrictive labour laws, and vast swathes of declining rust-belt industries. It is no great surprise that many people look at France today and conclude that it looks a lot like Britain in the 1970s – and decide that what it needs is a Gallic version of Margaret Thatcher to shake it out of economic decline.Now they may have their man. In the primaries to choose the centre-right candidate for next year’s presidential election, the former prime minister, François Fillon, took an unexpected early lead. A staunch admirer of Thatcher, Fillon campaigned on a platform of bracing free-market reforms – and at least a chunk of the electorate appear to have liked what they heard.Like Thatcher before him, Fillon wants to slim down the state, take on restrictive labour laws, such as the 35-hour week and early retirement ages, and unleash some entrepreneurial energy to restore growth and create new jobs. Fillon’s problem, however, is this: it is just not going to work. That is not just because he will face opposition from the unions, although he will. It is because it is virtually impossible to make structural reforms in an economy that is gripped by deflation.Rewind to 1980s Britain, which Fillon holds up as a role model. With its privatisation of state industries, cuts to government spending and dismantling of trade-union power, what became known as Thatcherism was a tough set of reforms, and there were lots of hard-fought battles to push those changes through. They were successful in the medium-term – but there was a lot of short-term pain beforehand.
The point that is often forgotten is this: those reforms were made against a backdrop of rising demand. The Tories in the 1980s started out with budget cuts and a deep recession in 1981-1982. But after that, as inflation came under control, real interest rates were steadily falling for most of the decade – and that fuelled an expansion of spending.
At the same time, the development of North Sea oil led to a windfall of tax revenues amounting to tens of billions of pounds. That enabled the government to cut taxes far faster than it otherwise could have done. Overall, the economy was being constantly stimulated – and, even so, it was still hard to make structural reforms.
France has nothing like that going for it. Interest rates are already close to zero, and in some cases negative. The European Central Bank has been printing money like crazy for the past year, and can hardly do much more. France is stuck with an over-valued currency, for its own needs at least, which shifts demand to Germany. It has plenty of shale gas, but has so far shown zero interest in developing it. The backdrop is constantly deflationary, and it is impossible to see where any significant stimulus to demand is going to come from. Against that, structural reform is hopeless.
Going into the election next year, Fillon’s real problem will be promising the impossible. That only makes it more likely that National Front leader Marine Le Pen will be the eventual winner. Most of her policies are toxic – but at least they are realistic. France has little chance of reviving its economy so long as it remains a member of a single currency that is steadily ripping the heart out of its industrial base. Thatcherism plus control of its own currency would work – but unfortunately that is not what is on offer.
So you see one pays the money and takes the choice

—————————————

These days Emily, I finds I pays more and more money and gets less and less choice. As for Fillon, he’s a sort of Sarkozy Deux – and one of the things I like about France is that, if faced with Thatcher, they’d probably have given her the Jeanne D’Arc treatment.

Btw, if this is your idea of a brief O/T ma chère, please don’t bring any of your lengthy ones here.

For the record, Obama deported well over 2 million illegals during his 8 years term, about as many in toal as had previosly been deported over the previous 200 years. Trump has said he will deport 2.7 million illegals with criminal records in 4 years, that is twice Obama’s rate. Good luck finding them! It is almost 2,000 every day.